Dawn of War: Basic Commands

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Movement

Unlike some other strategy games, most units in Dawn of War can still fire their weaponry while moving, known as Fire on the Move or FotM (see Fire on the Move). FotM comes with a severe accuracy penalty, however, so it is best to keep your troops stationary whenever they're in combat. If you expect to win an engagement, it may be better to move your troops closer than necessary so they can get more parting shots on the enemy before they flee. This can be accomplished more easily, and certainly safer, by using transports.

A squad will always move at the speed of the slowest squad member. For example, attaching the Force Commander (speed 16) to a Scout Marine Squad (speed 20) or a Commissar (speed 16) to an upgraded team of Kasrkin (speed 21.3) will force both squads to move at a speed of just 16 even though some squad members can move faster.

Attack Move

An attack move will order your units to move to the targeted location, but stop and fire at any enemies they come across along the way. In order for a unit to stop and fire at an enemy target, the center of the unit or squad must be within a certain radius of the enemy. Although this value is generally set to the unit's maximum weapon range in Soulstorm, this value is almost universally set to 35 in Dark Crusade, although it is longer for artillery so that they will automatically fire from their maximum range. This means that a Fire Warrior Team will close to a range of 35 when performing an attack move even though they can fire at a range of 50 after both of their weapon upgrades. If you want to use the maximum range of your units, either leave them idle so that they can pick their own targets, prematurely halt their attack move using the stop command, or manually give them specific targets.

Researches and Add-ons

Most researches are performed at designated research buildings, although some, such as the resources researches at generators and listening posts, are distributed elsewhere. Once complete, the effects of a research are permanently applied and remain even if the research building is destroyed.

Add-ons, on the other hand, only take effect as long as the building upon which they are constructed still stands. The upgrades at the various HQ buildings are all add-ons, so losing those buildings will cause the loss of the add-on effects. If an ability requires the add-on to be used (such as Execute) or a unit needs the add-on to be built (such as the Chaplain), the ability or unit will be inaccessible until the building and add-on are replaced. In the case of the HQ, this could send a player back to Tier 1 even if Tier 3 buildings, such as the Orbital Relay or Daemon Pit, have been constructed, almost certainly losing him the game. Turret and listening post upgrades are add-ons as well.

Eldar Aspect Stones and Imperial Guard Temples, Depots, and Quarters have even more stringent requirements. In order for the unit they unlock to be built at the structure, the add-on must be constructed at the building itself. For example, if an Eldar player has two Aspect Portals but only one has a Dark Reaper Aspect Stone, the other Aspect Portal cannot train Dark Reapers until it too has a Dark Reaper Aspect Stone. The advantage to these local add-ons is that even if the HQ is destroyed, as long as the add-ons are already built the units can still be produced, making it difficult to de-tech an Eldar or Imperial Guard player just by destroying one building.

Deleting Units

There may come a time when the player is strapped for resources and needs a quick infusion of requisition or power to quickly get out new units. In these cases he can delete his own buildings by selecting them and pressing Delete on the keyboard to get back a portion of the resources spent on their construction.

Deleting an incomplete building will return the entire build cost. Many players use this trick to almost complete the construction of a turret, then redirect the builders elsewhere just before it's finished. If the player gets rushed by the enemy, he will quickly polish off the turret to throw back the attackers. Else, he'll delete the turret once no attack appears and get back the full investment for other uses.

Once a building is complete, it will return only 50% of its resources. Some buildings, such as power generators, HQs, or Barracks, will return only 10% of the build cost. This value is adjusted for the amount of damage a building has sustained, so deleting a building at half health will return only 25% or 5% of its build cost, depending on the return rate. Check the building's page in the wiki to see its return value. Constructing an add-on does not affect the return value of a building. Any in-progress resource expenditures; including unit construction, researching, or reinforcing a squad; are canceled and return their full value.

Deleting infantry and vehicles never provides a resource return other than freeing up the squad/support cap the unit was using. This is occasionally necessary to bring out the Tier 4 tanks and uber units such as the Leman Russ or Avatar of Khaine.

Overwatch

Overwatch is a means of automating some of the more mundane tasks while building units and upgrading squads. Overwatch is activated and deactivated by right clicking instead of left clicking on a unit to train, a reinforce button, or a heavy weapon upgrade weapon. While overwatch is active, the selected action will be automatically repeated whenever the build queue for that unit or building is empty and resources are available for the action. For example, by right clicking on the Space Marine Squad at the Chapel-Barracks, whenever the Chapel-Barracks' build queue is empty the training of a new Space Marine Squad will begin as long as 190 are available.

When multiple overwatches are set on a single unit or building, such as training two units or reinforcing and upgrading a squad with heavy weapons, the two actions will alternate as long as resources are available to do so. Overwatch will automatically disable if the limit on the unit produced, the size of the squad reinforced, or heavy weapons capacity of the squad has been reached.

To globally manage all of your overwatch queues, use the small pause button in the bottom left of the screen to temporarily halt all overwatch. Actions already underway will finish, but no new overwatched actions will be started. If you've been too aggressive using overwatch, this can be a quick way to halt the drain on your resources. Clicking on the button again will resume overwatch. The stop button will cancel the overwatch settings, but as with pausing overwatch any existing actions will still be finished.

Aside from the obvious advantage of simpler micromanagement of your army, overwatch also allows you to avoid pre-paying for units. For example, purchasing two consecutive Space Marine Squads without a delay in between would require an immediate investment of 380 . By using overwatch, 190 will be spent on the first squad, and the second squad's resources will only be spent when the first squad finishes. This frees up the second squad's resources to be spent on some other immediate use while the incoming resources will be used for the next Space Marine squad to be built.